I really liked 2 submissions. First the Griverjoe. I think that he really put a lot of thought into the concept and character design and following his progress in Art Critique part of the forum was great. On the other hand one thing that is missing from his submission is a little more ambient and drama.

This is something i really like on astrapho's submission and that's why I gve this one to him.

This voting is genuinely scary for me. All of you guys have created such super cool submissions.

I really like how you're pushing yourself with new technical challenges djizomdjinn. Could have painted a mech battle, but no, paint a mecha battle in the rain instead! Don't know about you, but I would have smoked a cartful of cigarettes, while trying to figure out how to do that properly. And the painting is really good. Love the lighting and mood.

Joe, my dear pumpkin. Your take on the theme is the most original. Not only that, but it is also a good idea (get it, being original not always secures good results, but this does). The designs are well thought through and you are also quite the muscular man. What is there not to like?

astrapho, you know what, it's ok that you stomp me into the ground during every contest. It has something to do with the fact that you are a really good artist. Your submission does well on the technical level and I also love the wackiness of the characters. (do you by any chance know Harpy Gee, don't know why, but your character expressions kind of remind me of that comic, you may like it)

I think.

There is no way back once I do it.

Here it is. I am voting for Grieverjoe, although his painting isn't maybe as refined as the others, but I loved the development of the characters and I feel that this submission has much more to offer than just a battle scene. I hate myself for picking only one.

p.s. this doesn't at all mean that we couldn't be dating, astrapho, if you wanted to.

Without a doubt the strongest piece here, it is exuding character and implies an interesting story. You avoided the tropes of having only pretty characters, and i adore the horses expression! You are developing as an artist in quite an interesting direction and it is exciting to watch, and this piece is just another brick in your awesome adventure.

I can almost imagine the cheesy boss battle mechanics that would come into play here if this was a game!

If i was to comment on anything, i would perhaps like to see a more compelling creature design, as it is a bit plain, but it is a minor nitpick in a strong piece.

2:Djizomdjinn:

Probably the most ambitious entry here, it implies an interesting battle and you attempted to pull off a lot of difficult things within the image to varying degrees of success. But overall i felt that it nails the theme of the competition very well.

It matches the theme thematically very well, and I like the amount of depth that the image has.

To add some comments, i really think this piece would have benefited from having a lot more contrast, and more focus on it being at night. It would give you a great chance to focus on the shiny wet surfaces.

3:Lamb

This piece kicks ass!

The action is great, the colours are experimental and the character designs are interesting. Where this falls down for me is that im not entirely sure about the narrative of the piece. What is that flying wall thing, which character is the boss? It's an awesome image but there is very little in the image that communicates motives or what is going on in this image.

Through the technicalities this piece is a solid third but it was a major tossup between this and Djizomdjinn.

Well done, i see a lot of growth in your style here, and you have done some very cool stuff.

Honorable mention:

Greiver Joe.

I liked this piece, but i found that it was a bit too static, and i think it played to old tropes a little too much to my liking. it was certainly ambitious and i think you have displayed a high level of technical skill with it.

I think i would have liked to see designs that are more cohesive, as none of the designs of the bosses and the player character (?) really match each other, and as such all the designs feel like a random smattering of cultures without a clear linking element.

But regardless great work, and it is exciting seeing your grow as an artist!

General comments:
I thought the technical aspects of most of the entries were up there, a lot of my decision making boiled down to thematic relevance and what sort of message or feeling I got out of each entry. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Third Place (1 point): GrieverJoe
I thought your entry was the most original of the bunch, coupled with good composition and rendering. I like the idea of multiple enemies that complement and contrast one another. A couple things are holding it back: one is technical/rendering inconsistency. I didn't like how soft and feathered the lion's fur and the robed guy's robe are, given the hard nature of the rest of the rendering. Thematically, it's hard to understand the relationship between the bosses and the protagonist without prior explanation. Mechanically, it's difficult to imagine how the protagonist is intended to interact with the bosses to defeat them.

Second Place (2 points): Lamb
Your entry has good theme relevance, and I like your daring use of saturated pinks and oranges, contrasted with the lighter greens (I'd love to see the references that you used in picking the color scheme =D). The reason it didn't place higher was that I thought you could have pushed the motion illusion a little harder, either with blur or some other technique. Despite being an action shot, it looks weirdly static. And while the characters have an interesting design, and are non-stereotyped, it means that it's a bit difficult to identify character motivation, or even which of the two is the protagonist or the boss. maybe even the dragon is the boss?

First Place (3 points): astrapho
I thought your entry fit the theme the most self-evidently, with great use of textures, color, and composition. The rendering is rough hewn, but I like that. there's a feeling of efficiency in its creation; it feels like concept art. The expressions on the monster and protagonists really sell the intended relationship between the characters.

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Critiques/additional comments:

GrieverJoe:
I think the best thing about your pic is the composition. the symmetric/central setup with subtle asymmetries works great. shifting the colors saturation or some other change would have been useful to push the bosses back and push the protagonist forward. Be careful with the anatomy. I'm guessing the lines on the protagonist's arms are meant to suggest the brachioradialis, but i don't think they're in the right position. and if you're going to use that level of detail, there should have been more delineation in the robed guy's hands. not a big fan of the gradient background...maybe a little more suggestion of an actual environment, or something might have been useful.

djizomdjinn:
Sorry, yours was a close runner up =( Things I like: I thought it was pretty ballsy of you to render something as difficult as a fight in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. Lots of things to worry about in terms of rendering accuracy. The colors are great too, I like the blues and oranges set in the grey setting. I think ultimately though there are things that look weird to my eye, like how there's circular ripples from drops on slanted surfaces, lack of shadows on the water surface, the density of the rain the air compared to the rain drop density bouncing off surfaces. Similar to Lamb's entry, I'm not really getting a good sense of motion/action despite what's being depicted. I think you could have spent a bit more time thinking about the composition to emphasize what's going on.

astrapho:
dat horse face:
Like I said, great technical execution. I love the character designs...vaguely Russian/eastern European =D hoc dicto, I feel like the pic lost a little something in its transition from sketch to final product. in the monochrome sketches, the monster appeared much more massive. with the lighting washing out most of its body, all you see is the head, and it just looks smaller at first glance. Looks like you skimped on the monster a bit, but even so, you could have made its design a little more interesting in terms of silhouette/shape, even if you didn't have time to render. The sled looks a bit too small to comfortably carry the two protagonists, and the perspective of the sled looks a little wonky to me, I cannot put my finger on it. The guy on our right looks like his face is in profile, when it feels like it should be 3/4.

Lamb:
Regarding motion, definitely you're not limited to blur, but if you wanted to go that way, consider blurring trailing ends of things, like the sword arm of the orange girl, the lower torso of the black girl, the little chunks that are falling off the dragon. alternatively, you can push the background back by blurring that, and the distal part of the dragon. Remember that you're on a digital platform, if you don't like it there's always undo =p if you don't want blur, speed lines are always cheap and easy. even if that's coiffed hair or something, i'd like to see the wind affect it, same goes with that orange dress. Looking more carefully, I'm guessing that the dragon is being cut in this image? that's not immediately clear. Id' suggest a little more secondary motion, like the ends of the dragon bending in the direction of the black girl. Aside from what I mentioned above, there might also be some perspective issues, like with the orange girl's sword arm ( I think maybe it should be angling away from the viewer more even if it's being held to the side), but they're not major issues.

Dweedee(3d):
obviously incomplete. thematically, i'd like to see both a protagonist and a boss character, I think. would love to see this sketch brought to its conclusion though.

1. Lamb
The artwork has everything - colors, a battle, movement, concept. I like the idea of a boss battle set in the air. It's something that may seem insignificant at the first glance, but such a leap into the air puts the character into an environment where they are on their own. And that's what boss battles are all about, to fight out the fight, whether it is outside or just inside their mind, ultimately by themselves.
What shouldn't be missing in any fight is movement, after all stagnation means death, movement is life - and we want our hero to survive. There are several ways the artwork conveys movement. It is most apparent in the backdrop and the pose of the warrior. She looks as if she is just about to vault and get behind her adversary.
The battle itself is indicated by the cut tail (structure the warriors are flying through). I like the original clothing and weapons of the characters. I especially dig the antlers, they are very cute.
The color combination is great -it was mainly them what tipped the scales in favor of this artwork. They catch the eye and won't let the viewer go. Maybe it's just that they remind me of Jian Gu who uses a similar color palette pleasant to the eye.

2. Grieverjoe
Amazing idea! To depict the boss battle as a fight with your own demons and emotions was very smart. It's a situation we experience more often than battles with ancient monsters (Cthulhu, anyone?). I like the stance of the protagonist who seems determined to face the obstacles. There is no hesitation or worry, just determination of the moment. I like the emotion and message of the artwork. The colors don't attract as much attention as with lamb's piece. Maybe it would help if the Chinese monster on the left used colors which are more contrastive to the background. I feel it blends in a little too much.

3. Astrapho
Haha, here is that large ancient monster I was writing about in response to Grieverjoe's piece. (perhaps a dragon). The whole artwork looks very good, except for one thing that bugs me - the face of the lasher on the sledge. Although his expression is hilarious, the flatness makes it seem as if he was missing half of his face. If I was to nitpick (which I am not ), one other thing is the horse's stance. If it is meant to be in mid jump, the positioning of its legs is not correct. If it is just a prance, it's not apparent from this artwork, so I am a bit confused as to what the horse is actually doing - galloping, jumping? I love it's expression, though. Great job.
On a positive note, the concept is great and the execution is a real success. The image leads the viewer towards the warmer colors and more intense lighting of the monster, which in turn seems larger and more menacing. You placed it in the aboslute middle of of the image and thus we really feel in we're in the middle of a boss battle

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Thanks again all of you guys for participating, your effort is very highly appreciated, and I could have tried to write it down in a way that would sound more like I meant it, but I really did. Amazing jobs all of you!

A big thanks to the Judges as well. The walls of text themselves were surely worth the effort. I will actually go back to my submission and iron out the things you pointed out

Really thanks for the great critique all you judges, now that they can't be unseen I'll definitely go back to the piece and apply them asap. great to have some action around here, maan when's the next one?